Chelsea went to Sunderland on Sunday with a three-man midfield for the first time this season and, for the second match running, no recognised striker. They lost 1-0. Ten games into Xabi Alonso's first Premier League campaign, the thing his side still does not have is a shape you could describe to someone who had not watched them.
Only Tottenham, on 28, have made more line-up changes than Chelsea's 24 this season. Some of that is injury and some of it is choice, and telling the two apart has become the central question about Alonso's start.
The penalties, and the manager who would not discuss them
Brian Brobbey won the game's only goal, going down under Levi Colwill's challenge in the 36th minute for Enzo le Fee to convert. Moments earlier Cole Palmer had gone down under Luke O'Nien and been denied, VAR judging the contact began outside the box. Alonso and his staff were visibly angry on the touchline.
Afterwards he would not go near the officials. Asked whether Brobbey had simply been unstoppable, he said: "No, he's stoppable. He's stoppable, but we have to do it better than we did today. Out of almost nothing he got a couple of chances. He got the penalty as well. I'm not happy with how we defended that situation. It's something that we could have avoided, something that we had worked on during the week." Colwill was taken off at half-time, with Moises Caicedo filling in at centre-back despite barely completing a full training session all week.
An injury list that keeps rewriting the team
The casualty list explains a great deal. Joao Pedro is out with a thigh problem having featured in wins over Bournemouth and Everton. Captain Reece James was injured just as Caicedo came back. Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez broke his jaw in a collision at Everton. Maxence Lacroix, a near ever-present since arriving from Crystal Palace in the summer, is not expected back until January with a hamstring injury, and Jorrel Hato has had a setback.
"There are situations," Alonso said. "Yesterday Josh said he was not ready to play, so we are short of options and we need to walk through this step. Even when we win, when we lose, we miss some players that we have injured and for sure we are waiting for them to come back because they are important." Supporters have their own frustration: Estevao Willian, on at half-time at the Stadium of Light, has started one league match all season.
Unpredictable, as promised
Before the season Alonso said he wanted Chelsea to be unpredictable. They have managed it, mostly at their own expense. They had been averaging 46% possession before Sunday, then had 68.7% at Sunderland and created almost nothing with it. Only Crystal Palace have conceded more shots on target than Chelsea's 50, while Chelsea lead the league with 53 of their own, which is a description of a team whose games are wide open at both ends rather than a team in control of them.
There is a case for patience. Chelsea sit fifth, on course for the Champions League, with five more points than they took from the same fixtures last season. That season ended in 10th place, so the comparison flatters. Alonso promised last week that Chelsea would be "different" and "better" by the end of the campaign. He has an international break to start working out how.
Context: Chelsea have five wins, four defeats and a draw from 10 Premier League games under Xabi Alonso, 44, and sit fifth. They have made 24 line-up changes, second only to Tottenham's 28, and lost 1-0 at Sunderland on 8 November to an Enzo le Fee penalty.
0 Comments